Social media checks for US visa applicants approved!

It has been no secret that Donald Trump has wanted to curb immigration and cut down the amount of visa applications for the US. He may well now be on his way of achieving his goal after all. Even though several travel bans have already been refused there is one thing that has been approved. It will now be possible for the US to proceed to make Social media checks/investigations on their visa applicants.

The new process had been approved by the Trump administration on 23rd May. This new process will require applicants to provide multiple levels of information including: Social media handles, email addresses and phone numbers of the past 5 years along with employment and travel history of the last 15 years.

Not only are the US adding social media checks onto their visa applications. The US labour department have insisted they will be making more of an effort to combat potential fraud, within the visa programs for foreign labourers. In April there was an executive order that was targeting the H-1B visa scheme, which is one of the biggest visa schemes use by tech companies. The US labour department and Homeland security each have a role in reviewing the applications for foreign workers. It has been said they want to take steps to help prevent fraud within the visa scheme. The steps they are proposing they take include the department’s wage and hour service to “use all available tools” to process civil probes and checking for criminal referrals. Not only will they process these checks: they are hoping to process changes to the H-1B labour condition applications that the companies themselves process when they wish to higher over seas workers.

It is definitely clear that Trump wants to put America first, with all the changes that they are proposing it is clear that they want to keep immigration on a tight leash.